Some films have just one thing on their cine-minds: to become the next midnight-movie cult item, even now, in this age of perpetual, immediate, any time-access to so much. A noble goal. But facetiousness gets you only so far.

This is a fantasy grab bag in which nearly anything can happen. At one point a freezer full of packaged meats disgorges its contents, which spring to life and assemble themselves into an encased-meat monster. A mustache transforms into a batlike creature. A rip in the space-time continuum (which is always ripping in the movies — talk about cheap fabric) leads to a scene in a coffeehouse.

One guy gets a phone call from the other guy, who's calling from an alternate universe, also in the present. So he's talking to two versions of the same person, simultaneously. Things like that.

The story comes from Cracked.com staffer Jason Pargin, writing under the pseudonym David Wong, who launched "John Dies at the End" as a 2001 online serial. Later it was published as a paperback, and then a revised version appeared in hardcover in 2009. The movie begins with Dave (Chase Williamson) sitting in a booth in a Chinese restaurant, recounting his improbable adventures to an investigative journalist (Paul Giamatti, who also executive-produced and who soars above the general quality level like an eagle).

It's all about soy sauce. The sauce, we learn, is a drug that allows the user to access alternate dimensions. Dave and his pal John (Rob Mayes) get wind of a planned interdimensional invasion overseen by the evil Korrok. In order for us (well, me) to get on board with Coscarelli's movie, we'd (I'd) have to enjoy the banter and the blase heroics of the leads. But the leads struggle to get a rhythm going, and Coscarelli — who brought an earlier generation "Phantasm," some "Phantasm" sequels and (more to my taste, thanks to the Tanya Roberts factor) "The Beastmaster" — hasn't found a way to turn his admiration for the material into a stupid-fun movie.

Since 2002 there have been arguably 50 movies about superheroes. Arguably, because genre is tricky; it's often variations on a theme, and some variations are less obvious than others. ("Star Wars," for instance, a bit of a space western, is no one's picture of the western genre.) Oh, also: Because...

The Seattle CEO who raised salaries for all of his employees to a minimum of $70,000 a year, drawing accusations of socialism, now says he has fallen on hard times, the Washington Times reported Saturday.

It's a battle that goes all the way back to their college days at the University of Miami — defensive end Olivier Vernon vs. left tackle Jason Fox. Now that matchup is taking place at the NFL level with the Dolphins, and there's much more at stake.